When the Wild lost 5-1 to the Chicago Blackhawks at the Xcel Energy Center on Oct. 30, it closed out a difficult month for Mikko Koivu.

The Minnesota captain produced just one goal and seven assists in 13 games that month, and the Wild limped to a 6-4-3 record.

The day after the loss to the Blackhawks, Koivu was asked to assess his game. Was he playing well enough?

"Obviously, you always want to score more and produce offensively, like any player," he said then. "But at the same time, I think we've been playing good hockey. There's ups and downs. But yeah, it's my job to produce offensively, and I haven't been able to do that as much as I want."

Since then, check out what Koivu has done -- and the Wild, too.

Minnesota is 8-1-1 this month thanks in no small part to Koivu, who has four goals and eight assists in those10 games, including two game-winners, the latest one coming with 2:57 left in Wednesday night's 4-3 victory in Ottawa.

So, what is Koivu doing differently?

Nothing.

"I don't think I've changed my game at all. I know I haven't," he said. "When you're getting chances, you have to believe it's going to go in. And lately it's been going in. But I've been doing the same things."

It's not just that Koivu has put the puck in the net. It's when he's done it.

In a much-needed win Wednesday, he scored the game-winner and added two assists. Three nights earlier, in a 2-1 home win over Winnipeg, Koivu scored both Wild goals, the winner coming with 3:12 to play.

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He has recorded at least one point in the Wild's past four wins and eight total in those games.

"If you look back at the last four wins, you look at the goals that line has scored for us, it's big," Yeo said. "They're real big. That's what you want from your leaders."

The day after the Wild's worst loss of the season, a 6-2 drubbing Tuesday night in Montreal, "leadership" was the talk of the locker room. And it started with the captain Wednesday.

It's no coincidence that Koivu's turnaround has coincided with the Wild's improved play.

"That's leadership," Yeo said. "When your captain is saying I've got to do better and I will do better ... it's one thing to say it, and it's another to go out and do it. And they've watched him do it. He's a guy that when he steps over the boards, everybody is watching to see what he does."

Yeo said he doesn't know why, but Koivu has gotten off to a slow start each of the three seasons he has coached the Wild. But once he's gotten over the hump -- sometimes it's taken a couple of weeks, sometimes a month -- the results come and the confidence follows.

"I do agree he's found another level to his game lately, for sure," Yeo said. "He's playing extremely well right now. But I also felt he was playing extremely well at the start of the year but pucks weren't going in. I don't know what it is, but I know the way he's playing the game right now he's feeling extremely confident."